pronounced it the femur of a gigantic bird like Brontozoum. Its form showed it to belong to that particular place in the series; and his confidence in the uniformity of the plan led him to risk his reputation upon the result, though earnestly entreated by his friends to desist. The Brontozoum and Dinornis are now household names in science.

The study of fossil remains has brought to light curious types of animals now extinct. We have no living representatives of the trilobites, reptilian birds, iguanodon, ichthyosaurus, and whole families of reptiles. These missing forms have their places in the great system; they fill up gaps in the series. To have contrived the intricate structure of the animal kingdom demanded more skill, more discernment of nice adaptation of means to ends, more balancing of delicate adjustments, than any other department of nature. Therefore to have designed a uniform plan in accordance with which all organic beings are constructed must have required infinite skill; and this attribute belongs to mind, not matter.

Objection. The organic chain has been constructed by the laws of nature, one organism developed from another on Darwinism principles.

Answer. The development theory does not oppose our argument. Whence came the laws? Who ordered the system of nature so wondrously that polyp could change to echinus, echinus to mollusk, etc.? Who adapted the system of laws so that these harmonies resulted? It was mind. The development theory presents arguments for the existence of God as forcibly as the idea of progression. To many minds the argument from development would be indicative. of more elaborate design.

B. There is a parallelism between the geological succession of animals and plants and their relative standing in classification. This is equivalent to saying that the first organisms were the simplest, and the more complex were gradually introduced in the order of their rank. We may refer for a

1 Contributions to the Natural History of the United States, by L. Agassiz, Part I. p. 108.

few details upon this subject to the subsequent pages of this Article.

C. Many of the fossil animals combined with their own characteristics some of those of other and higher classes not yet created. Though intermediate, they never occupy the middle point, as they properly belong to one of the two. Thus they were prophetic of the higher classes, and have been called synthetic or comprehensive. All the great vertebrate classes had their prophetic representatives in the age previous to that of their maximum development. The mammals were foreshadowed by the marsupials, who combine avian or reptilian with mammiferous characters, a few of whom lived in Triassic times. Birds were prefigured by the reptilian birds of the Connecticut sandstone. The Dicynodontia were reptiles having a pair of tusks growing downwards from the lower jaw like the mammalian walrus. The ichthyosaurus was reptilian and piscine. The labyrinthodon was batrachian with certain reptilian bones and ganoid teeth. The earliest fishes were sauroid, having reptilian characteristics. The sauroids were Devonian, but true fishes were first seen in mesozoic strata. Some of man's characteristics were foreshadowed in the mammals.

D. The adaptations of the physical world to the structure of the inhabitants in every age were very marked. In the Silurian age the climate was ultra-torrid; there were no mountains, the land was low and marshy, the air was thick with vapors and foul with carbonic acid, winds and storms The inhabitants were low algae, corals, shells, and trilobites,-vegetative animals, perfectly adapted to their

were scarce.

concomitants.

In the Jurassic period the sun shone, clouds and storms agitated the atmosphere; carbonic acid had been condensed into coal-beds; enormous air-breathing reptiles and voracious birds crowded the air, water, and marshes; carnivorous mollusks and insects peopled the estuaries and thickets. The Jurassic animals could not have flourished in the Silurian age, and most of the Silurian organisms would have fared

poorly in the later period. Every system of creation had its peculiar adaptations to the varying state of the world.

The whole series of systems constituted harmonious parts of one whole, and all the agencies were fitted to accomplish one grand result - preparation of the soil, climate, and surface for the advent of man. Death was present in order to maintain the system of reproduction, and carnivorous animals were nature's police to keep down the excess of population. All the agencies were adapted to accomplish specific purposes; and as we see them one after another, we realize that the fitness of each thing for every other was contrived by an infinite designer.

II. Geology proves and illustrates the natural and moral attributes of God. Certain geological facts may be employed to prove and illustrate such natural attributes as the personality, self-existence, omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, unity, immutability, and eternity of God. The argumentation would be similar to that now employed by theologians, and therefore need not be stated here. Under the general term "benevolence we include all the moral attributes.

Natural evils. Objection is made to the benevolence of God on account of the existence in the pre-adamic world of natural evils, such as death among animals and plants, pain, extremes of climate, deserts, deformity or absence of beauty, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions. We take the ground that these evils were incidental, and sometimes essential to the stability of the system, with its present laws. Now if we show that these so-called evils are decidedly beneficial to the system, the objection to the divine benevolence is removed. We have no proof of the existence of moral evil or sin in the world before man.

1. Pain and death. The amount of susceptibility to pleasure and pain possessed by animals, denotes their relative place in the scale of life. The polyps may lose portions of their bodies, or be divided into fragments, yet the original animal does not appear to notice the injury, and each one of the parts may become a new animal. But man at the other

The

end of the scale may be killed by the point of a needle. animals intermediate possess different degrees of susceptibility to pain or pleasure, but the one is always the exact measure of the other. We do not know of any way in which physical pleasure can be enjoyed, without implying the presence of susceptibility to pain. Death existed among the early animals. This is proved by the myriads of their remains in the rocks, by the succession of groups, by the presence of carnivorous animals who could not subsist upon vegetables, and by the discovery of animal food within the bodies of petrified carnivores. Many rocks are, to a great extent, composed of the remains of dead animals. The idea of reproduction implies death. The races when created were directed to increase and multiply, which command involves death. Plants were introduced with seeds in them; this implies the death of the plant. All organic life constitutes a cycle; first the germ or seed, then the embryo, the young, the adult, and then the seed to be developed as before, while the adult soon disappears. There is death during the entire lives of animals. Old matter is thrown away; as in man, the whole body is replaced every seven years. The office of plants is to convert mineral atoms into organic substance. They derive sustenance directly from the mineral kingdom, while animals can obtain their subsistence only from organized matter. Hence the existence of herbivores implies the death of plants.

The plant, as it grows, assimilates carbon from the decomposition of carbonic acid in the atmosphere. When it decays carbonic acid is formed by the union of the carbon with oxygen of the air, exactly as much as was consumed in its growth. Thus the chemical changes exactly balance each other. The same is true of the relations of plant-food to animals. The carbon assists in forming the bulk of animals, and when they decay it combines with the oxygen again. The higher carnivorous quadrupeds and the larvae of insects feed upon other animals, both the living flesh and dead carcasses. The flesh-worms and maggots serve to prevent

putrefaction, and thus the return of the highest organized flesh to the inorganic kingdom in the decline of the cycle is accomplished gradually, just as the ascent through plants and low animals was by degrees. The decomposition of bulky carcasses would render the air and water foul, and destructive to many species, did not the scavengers purify them, both by the removal and subdivision of the filth, so as to be readily assimilated by plants. Thus the carnivores preserve the balance of nature, both by checking excessive multiplication and preparing decaying bodies for plant-food.

Death to animals is a benevolent provision. Those killed by carnivores suffer very little, as their death is not anticipated, and they do not grieve at leaving their companions. Besides there is more pleasure on the whole to many races rapidly succeeding one another than to a few long continued. For the young of all animals enjoy more in the same period of time than their elders, on account of superior health, vigor, and the novelty of the scenes before them; and a succession of races enables a larger number to live in the time of vivid enjoyment, and thus the sum total of happiness is greater. Such are spared the feebleness of old age. Death by violence to unreasoning animals is the easiest of all the modes. If animals were immortal, there would have been little happiness among them as soon as the world was overstocked. There would have been suffering for want of food, and besides, immortality would have been impossible to those who were devoured. Plants are incapable of suffering.

It is difficult to see how occasional death could be avoided in a world like ours where the lightning may strike, the earthquake swallow up, the tornado devastate, tempestuous waves wash up marine animals beyond the reach of returning tides, and the torrents overwhelm. Especially would this be true when changes of level accompanied geological catastrophes. These may or may not have been violent, but their uniform result has been the complete or partial extermination of life. None of these calamities could have been averted without great injury to the earth. Death was an incidental